


dell’amore que non dorme

by jellyryans (ryankellycc)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Cupid - Freeform, Falling In Love, Fantasy, Getting to Know Each Other, Kageyama has really lovely hair and Suga likes to touch it, M/M, a wee bit of angst but mostly fluff and a happy ending, inspired by art in a tangential and distant way, think good omens plus the good place plus the karasuno training gym?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 02:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21263330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryankellycc/pseuds/jellyryans
Summary: "Everything in the angelic realm was static, and their ways would remain exactly the same until they all blinked out of existence.On Earth, everything was mutable, including love."With Suga's help, Kageyama becomes Cupid.Written forokay-shafor the2019 Fantasy Haikyuu Halloween Exchange





	dell’amore que non dorme

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for vague manga spoilers for after chapter 367 -- nothing about the plot specifically but there are some allusions to lines of dialogue <strike>because I needed this to help me cope</strike>.

“That last shot was incredible. It was like he didn’t even need to look to line it up.”

Suga tore his eyes away from the angels milling around in the arena while they waited for the Judge to score them. Most of them were inspecting their most recent shots on the practice targets and chatting with the other angels in their scoring groups but one sat off to the side, scowling at the fletching in his arrow. The gold tip was lodged in the center of his assigned target.

“The rest of the angels in his scoring group don’t seem too happy about it though,” Daichi continued.

_That’s a nice way of putting it_, Suga thought. They should’ve been thrilled to have such a skilled angel to bring up their collective score but instead they avoided him like he’d shot his arrows into crowd of spectating angels. Suga couldn’t help but suppress a smile. They would’ve been able to dodge the arrows with ease, but it certainly would’ve livened up the proceedings. 

“He’ll have to work with other angels for a very long time.”

Suga snorted. _That_ was the understatement of an era. Once the angels in the arena received their placements, they would be there for ages, human centuries upon human centuries, right up until they faded. 

Daichi eyed him suspiciously. “What?” 

Suga leaned into the bannister that separated the spectators from the trial groups and rested his cheek on his hand so he could look at Daichi. “What d’ya mean _what_?”

“You really don’t have an opinion?”

Suga eyes were drawn back to the scowling angel. His nose was wrinkled in disgust and he was still standing by himself. He acted like he wasn’t paying attention to other angels milling around him, but he was tense enough that Suga could feel it. 

“You know me too well,” Suga said with a sigh. Daichi rolled his eyes but didn’t interrupt. “Sure, he’s got a long way to go in the interpersonal department, but with the right team and Mentor that’ll come.”

“And what if he comes to us? To you?”

“So serious,” Suga laughed. 

“I’m very serious, Suga.” 

Suga’s smile didn’t dim. “I know,” he said. “If he does, he’ll be way better Cupid than I ever was.”

“What makes you so sure?” 

“You gotta have faith, Daichi,” Suga teased. 

Daichi smiled and shook his head. “You sound like a human.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“No,” Daichi said. “They’re our purpose, after all.”

The Voice sounded around them, vibrating wildly in every possible direction, announcing the end of the trials. The other angels viewing the event rustled around them, adjusting their robes and whispering in voices that were selectively low, meant only for the angels that were supposed to hear them. Daichi slid in behind them and descended to the training arena to wait for the final verdict, but Suga lingered to watch as the last angels picked up their gilded accoutrements: instruments, books, weapons, and everything in between.

He didn’t leave until he was sure there was nothing left to see.

* * *

Suga closed the door slowly, fixing two of their newest teammates with a sunny smile until their faces disappeared behind the closed door. When the latch caught, he leaned his back against the smooth surface. “You sure about this, Daichi?” 

“The only way they’ll be motivated to work as a team is learning to work with each other,” Daichi answered grimly. 

Suga arched a thick brow. “It was the _only_ way? A team is built over time.”

The banished angels argued on the other side of the door. There was a shriek, an insult, and an ominous thump all in quick succession. 

“I know,” Daichi sighed. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked every inch of his status as the head of their division; his feet shoulder-width apart in a steady stance, his shoulders squared, and his head held high. Despite the power-posing, the left corner of Daichi’s mouth tugged downward. 

They had human appearances to grow accustomed to the form for their frequent trips among actual humans, and, if Suga had learned anything from his time as Cupid, human bodies had tells that gave away whatever they were trying to hide. 

Daichi might’ve been the head honcho of human emotion, but he obviously doubted his decision. In his position, he had standards to uphold, for himself and their entire group, which complicated things. Suga, on the other hand, had no such expectations, so he opened his mouth to say as much but Daichi raised his hand to cut him off. “I’ve got a group of angels to train and we can’t focus while the two of them are at each other’s throats. Whatever it is you’re about to say, _or do_, I don’t want to know.”

With one last shared look, Daichi turned his back on Suga and returned to the rest of their team. Suga paused to listen to the angels on the other side of the door.

He picked up Kageyama Tobio’s voice first. Each of his words cut the air like a recently sharpened knife. 

Then, he heard Hinata Shouyou’s animated retort, punctuated by a series of noises that, given the placement in their heated conversation, were probably meant to be words. 

He would be a great Messenger to Kageyama’s Cupid, if only they could be in the same space without some sort of altercation. 

_That_, Suga thought, _is where I come in_. He slunk away from the door and skipped over to the rest of the team, sidling up next to his own Messenger and hooking an arm around his neck. 

“Huh?” Tanaka said with none of the angelic grace that humans attributed to them. Suga made the motion for him to zip his lips, and Tanaka leaned in with wide eyes. 

“Wanna help me sneak Kageyama and Hinata into the arena when we’re done practicing?”

There was so much that Suga appreciated about his Messenger, but his favorite things about their partnership were their mutual fondness of both their teammates and literally anything that Daichi didn’t want to know about. Tanaka did not disappoint. 

“You know I do!”

A mischievous smile unfurled on Suga’s face.

* * *

Kageyama raised his bow until the arrow was perfectly parallel with the ground. He held it steady enough that any angelic passerby would assume he was a marble effigy, carved with the kind of care and delicacy that every angel dreamed for their legacy. 

With the slightest twitch of his fingers, the angel let his gold-tipped arrow fly.

The tip pierced the human’s heart just as she tossed her hair over her shoulder, and her eyes landed on the figure approaching her from the path.

A soft ding sounded above Kageyama’s head, letting him know that the shot had stuck, but neither of them needed the bell to confirm that his aim had been true.

Kageyama looked at his arrow in the woman’s chest with satisfaction, and the man who had been on the path sat down next to her. They smiled to themselves for a moment before the man asked about the book that had been folded on her lap. She held it up for him to see. Suga allowed him a brief moment of gratification.

“Soooo, why’d you pick that guy?” Suga asked.

Kageyama blew the hair out of his eyes. “They met all of the criteria for a match,” he answered curtly. 

There was a bluntness to Kageyama’s angelic core that might’ve (and had, on many occasions) pissed off another angel, but Suga had spent enough time with humans to know that not everyone was what they appeared. 

“True true,” he said airily. “Whaddya say to following them around for a bit?”

Kageyama cocked his head. “But my shot was perfect?”

“What’s a couple of months to an angel?” Suga said with a shrug. “C’mon, Kageyama-kun. Trust your Mentor!”

He could tell Kageyama was thinking, trying to pull this information together in a way that would make sense with what he’d been taught about the transactional nature of being Cupid.

Suga suppressed a shudder thinking about his own time with the dusty tomes written by angels who had only seen two humans in the entire span of their existence. Everything in the angelic realm was static and their ways would remain the same until they all blinked out of existence. 

On Earth, everything was mutable, including love. 

Kageyama eventually acquiesced to Suga’s needling, poking, prodding, punching, and nudging. They followed the couple through years of their relationship, from awkward kisses at their front doors to sharing a toothbrush on vacation, but it wasn’t until Suga and Kageyama found themselves as invisible guests at a birthday party that Suga found what they had been looking for. He froze and, in the blink of a human eye, he whipped around and punched right through Kageyama. 

Kageyama’s jaw dropped and he stared down at his midsection, where Suga’s fist had just been. 

“There!” Suga chirped.

Without saying anything, Kageyama spun to see the person Suga had hit. 

A knuckle-print glimmered golden in the abdomen of the man who would’ve only had to lean forward an inch to touch Kageyama’s lips with his own. Suga noticed their proximity with a sinking feeling he didn’t quite know what to do with, but Kageyama ignored the human entirely and followed the trajectory of the man’s eyes across the room. 

The man and the woman they followed were singing karaoke on a small stage, two sparks of human brightness, and the man with Suga’s mark smiled softly at them.

Kageyama’s eyes flitted around, the way they did when he processed a new situation. Suga was happy to watch him think; he had decided very early on that watching Kageyama absorb information was a delight. If he thought about it as a proprietary privilege, that was his little secret.

“How did you know?” Kageyama asked abruptly. His ocean-colored eyes bore into Suga’s so deeply that he wondered if that was how humans felt when they received one of their hits. 

Suga gulped. “Had a feeling.” The intensity in Kageyama’s eyes didn’t disappear, but his brow was no longer furrowed. He wasn’t upset, just curious and, on impulse, Suga reached up and poked him right between the eyes. 

Kageyama went cross-eyed following Suga’s finger, which made him laugh. He leaned on  
Kageyama’s shoulder while he giggled. “Hinata got their stats right in the park and your shot was great. The two of ‘em were perfectly compatible and probably would’ve had a great life together if we’d just left them to their own devices. But I just felt like there was _something_ missing. Like, they might have a chance at a fuller life if we dug a little deeper.”

“Something,” Kageyama repeated with a questioning lilt. He adjusted his posture to accept more of Suga’s weight. 

“Definitely something!”

“Could you show me how to find it, the something?” Kageyama asked. 

Suga let all of his angelic happiness bubble to surface. “That’s my job! But you know, if I tell you all my secrets, you’re gonna have to tell everyone that your magnificent Mentor, Sugawara, taught you everything you know! ”

Kageyama nodded seriously. “Okay.”

Behind them, a man and a woman with faded golden arrows through their hearts started their story with a man who bore the imprint of Suga’s knuckles.

* * *

No one had been prepared for the moment when Hinata and Kageyama completed their first near perfect target match during their weekly team training in the angelic realm.

Hinata had closed his eyes and put his finger on the match, and Kageyama took shot without hesitation. Suga’s jaw dropped, but his own Messenger put the feeling into words. 

“That setting is basically impossible” Tanaka shouted in shock. Then, with a loud, good-natured laugh, he added “You two are really a couple of freaks!”

Suga might not have chosen that word, but Tanaka wasn’t wrong. It was almost unheard of for a Cupid and their Messenger to pass the hardest setting on an Earth simulation so early on in their training. 

Kageyama and Hinata fell back into their usual exchange of insults almost immediately, but the rest of the team closed in on the pair to congratulate them. Much to everyone’s surprise, Kageyama didn’t protest the attention or criticize their excitement. 

He _thanked_ them. 

Suga’s head felt heavy. He stood up a little straighter. 

Kageyama went a step further and tried to smile. His expression was more of a grimace than an expression of joy, and sent Hinata back five steps in fear, but warmth exploded in Suga’s chest. It pulsed from deep within his angelic being and radiated from his core, through his limbs and down to the tips of his fingers. 

Kageyama, his Kageyama, stood proudly with the rest of the group, and Suga could almost forget the way his knees ached and the edges of his human form prickled uncomfortably.

They had only just begun and Kageyama was nearly ready to take on his role as Cupid and bring love to the human realm. He would those impossibly delicate creatures with power that not even they understood. 

Love could bind them in the best ways. Love could lift them higher than they’d ever imagined. Love could hold them together they were sure they would break. 

But sometimes the strings of love couldn’t withstand the weight of humans’ demands. Sometimes love fell asleep and the humans didn’t care to or couldn’t wake it up. Sometimes it disappeared without reason and was forgotten without fanfare. 

The angelic realm was balanced. When an angel was ready to take their place in the angelic realm, there was no need for their Mentor. 

When Kageyama was ready to become Cupid, Suga would fade. He would become the curator of abandoned love and the overseer of broken hearts. He would lose the ability to take his human form, and he would be forgotten. 

Suga didn’t want to fade. 

Even when he had imparted everything he knew, even when Kageyama had surpassed him, he wanted to be there for him, _with_ him. He wanted to keep watching Kageyama grow. 

Kageyama knew he would disappear, just as every single other angel in the realm knew, but he would never know the depths of how Suga would _miss_ him. 

Love was a power beyond understanding. It was the foundation of his and Kageyama’s existence. He couldn’t help but wonder if Kageyama would miss him, too.

* * *

Suga had trouble holding himself together.

He sat down more, and he rubbed his joints subconsciously. The breeze tousled his hair and Suga closed his eyes. Breathing wasn’t necessary for them but he inhaled anyway. The earth smelled beautiful in the early spring, when everything was wet and flowers started to open. It was alive even on the smallest, microscopic level. 

“Why don’t you have a bow?”

He and Kageyama sat side by side on a bench in Japan. Tree limbs heavy with cherry blossoms hung over their heads and waved at each other with each puff of wind. Suga tracked a lone pink petal until it landed in Kageyama’s hair. He took the opportunity to pinch it from the silky black strands that fell haphazardly over Kageyama’s forehead and stole another moment to thread his fingers through it. Kageyama watched Suga intently, as he always did. 

“Why did you _pick_ the bow?” Suga asked. 

Kageyama pursed his lips like he’d just shoved a handful of sour candy into his mouth. If he had the energy, Suga would’ve made the face right back, or summoned a nice, juicy lemon and egged him into biting into a slice. He made a mental note to write that one down for one of the angels who’d be there when he was gone. 

“It made the most sense,” Kageyama said. “Cupid has a bow and quiver.”

Suga snorted with sarcasm. “Uh-huh.”

“I mean, not including you, Suga-san,” he amended quickly. 

“You’re a talented angel but, with those reflexes, I’m glad you’re Cupid and not a Warrior.”

“I was rejected.”

Suga’s head jerked in surprise. “Wha?”

Kageyama looked ahead with such earnestness that Suga was already coming up with contingency plans to deal with the trees spontaneously combusting in front of a dozen pairs of human eyes. “I put my name in to be a Warrior, but I was rejected.”

Suga’s jaw went slack. He wasn’t sure even Daichi knew. “Oh?” He said dumbly, and Kageyama nodded. “So what, being Cupid was your second choice?”

“It was the only department that would have me.”

“Geez,” Suga said, “when ya put it like that it makes look like we were scraping the bottom of the barrel or something!”

“Were you?” Kageyama asked. 

“No, Kageyama-kun. I actually thought we got lucky.”

This time Kageyama turned his head, and Suga submitted himself to the scrutiny of Kageyama’s gaze. He was seized with the familiar desire to whisk Kageyama to the ocean and compare the color of the water to the color of his eyes. Why hadn’t they gone before? Every bone in Suga’s body grew weary and he shifted his seat on the solid, wooden bench until he and Kageyama were touching. Neither of them moved away.

“I don’t use a bow because I’m not all that great at it,” Suga admitted. He leaned back and looked up at the flowers over their heads. “I practiced and practiced, but it just wasn’t me.” He cracked his knuckles, his gold rings glittering into existence and reflecting the sun. “So I took things into my own hands,” he said with a loud snort. “Literally.” 

“You were allowed to?”

“Eh, we were creative enough that it slipped under the radar. Plus, Daichi’s a good angel,” Suga said. “He and the rest of the team worked with me to find my strength, which just happened to be hitting things with my bare hands.”

“That’s unconventional.”

Suga winked. “That’s me.”

“I didn’t think that we could change things that easily,” Kageyama said thoughtfully. “So you just get to punch random humans whenever you feel like it?”

“They don’t feel it! It’s just like your arrows piercing their hearts. And it’s not random... Oh!” Suga said loudly, then, catching the slight uptick of the corner of Kageyama’s mouth. “You’re messing with me!” 

“No?”

Suga’s rings disappeared and he hit Kageyama in the arm and then rested his arm across his shoulders. “You’ve got to be more convincing than that the next time you lie.”

“Okay,” Kageyama whispered back. 

“Y’know, I’m proud of you.”

“I broke my own record of successful targets last week and this is what you’re proud of?” 

“Of course!” Suga said, pulling Kageyama close enough to ruffle his hair. 

Kageyama let him, leaning in closer so Suga could muss the jet-black strands that would just slide back into place as soon as he sat upright.

* * *

Sooner than anyone expected, Kageyama was doing missions on his own with Hinata as his Messenger and the rest of the team to support him. Suga watched them from the angelic realm to provide passive support if they needed it.

He could still watch Kageyama line up his shots, but he couldn’t wrap himself around the angel with enthusiastic praise when he hit his target. He could watch Kageyama stroll through humans as they went about their day, but he couldn’t feel Kageyama’s angelic warmth next to him or point out someone who was picking their nose when they thought no one was watching. 

He should’ve been grateful that he had just a little more time to watch, but with each surge of gratitude came a wave of agonizing regret. 

Suga managed to pull himself out of his spiraling thoughts and into his human form when the announcement signaling the end of the group training sounded. He stretched on the bench from which he’d been observing, wincing when his joints cracked. 

Kageyama sat with a few other angels in the center of the training ground, and Suga watched them. He liked the way one of the angel’s freckles shifted like granules of sand in the wind with each new expression and the way Hinata seemed to burst like a solar flare with the slightest provocation. 

He liked the way Kageyama showed more and more of the angel that Suga knew he was; single-track minded, blunt, and stubborn, but also curious, thoughtful, and steadfast. 

The team was as good for him as he was for them. 

Kageyama made eye contact, and Suga waved with a motion that he hoped conveyed his wish that Kageyama would focus on the team. 

He leaned on the wall as casually as he could without arousing suspicion that he needed the wall in order to stand. The corners of Kageyama’s lips lifted and he smiled, forced and charming all in one, and Suga stifled a laugh that turned into yet another bone-cracking yawn. 

There were stories of old gods falling in love with other gods and angels falling in love with demons, but there were no stories of angels falling in love with other angels. 

Suga couldn’t stop himself from collapsing.

* * *

He was alone. 

All the Cupids before him were there, including his own Mentor, but Suga would never find them. 

He tried to remember his Mentor but it was all in vain. She only came back to him in scattered fragments. There weren’t even enough pieces for Suga to put together her face. 

Kageyama would forget his face, too. 

He was robbed of the feeling he had gotten used to in his human form. Nothing could hurt him, but somehow the emptiness felt like a weight pushing him toward the bottom of a bottomless pit.

It was too late.

It was too late to tell Kageyama how much he loved the way he soundlessly drew his arrows or cocked his head like a puppy when he couldn’t put something together. He’d never get to tell him how much he loved the way he still had trouble complimenting people but tried so earnestly or the way he traced Suga’s smile with critical eyes, the same way he did when he saw someone do something he wanted to replicate. 

It was too late to tell the rest of the angels to create their own stories, to fall in love with another angel, to screw whatever the realm had to say about it. 

It was far too late to tell Kageyama he loved him. 

Just for a moment, in the eternity that awaited him, he allowed himself the indulgence that his love wasn’t lonely. He could pretend, however briefly, that it wasn’t ridiculous to want Kageyama to carry Suga’s love, for him to be Kageyama’s treasure. 

He would join them someday. Suga wouldn’t know where, or when, but he would eventually fade. 

Somehow, that thought was worse. 

Kageyama and his statuesque beauty, his messy curtain of unbelievably soft hair and fierce blue eyes. Kageyama and his relentless pursuit of improvement, his natural curiosity and steadfast dedication. 

Suga had seen firsthand how selfish love could be, but he hadn’t really understood it until just then. He didn’t want Kageyama to follow the same path as he and all of the other angels had. Kageyama deserved an eternity of living, of love. He wasn’t meant for infinite loneliness. 

And if it was a selfish wish, Suga was the only one who would have to know.

* * *

Suddenly, there was color everywhere. 

Suga lifted the hand of his human form to shield his eyes from the onslaught of perception only to marvel at the lines in his palm. 

He blinked once, and then twice, and wiggled his fingers. 

Seeing his human form again was improbable and moving his appendages was a near-impossibility, but what struck him the hardest was how _warm_ he was. He wasn’t warm like humans were sitting in a sunbeam on a cold day or standing by a campfire. He was warm the way only angels knew, like his ethereal being was woven with fibers spun from an exploding star. 

“Suga-san?”

Instead of lowering his hand, he reached out, and when his fingers found thick, glossy strands. His eyes were still adjusting, but he didn’t have to see to know who was leaning over him. “Am I really here?”

Kageyama inclined his head to make it easier for Suga to comb through his hair. “Yes.” He took Suga’s other hand in his own and twined their fingers together. He spoke carefully, as if the question had been a trick, like Suga was the unreasonable one for asking how he was able to circumvent his predestined fate. 

“I wanted to go even further with this team.”

Suga had seen so many humans cry that he shouldn’t have been surprised when tears burned in the corners of his eyes and made tracks across his skin. He let his head rest back on the floor where he’d found himself laid out on his back and closed his eyes. “Just getting to hear you say that means there was point in getting this far. You’ll definitely be able to feel that way about your future teams, and the angels you’ll meet and the humans you’ll help. I just know it.”

He opened his eyes when Kageyama squeezed his hand. His eyes were wide but he still had the same mulish determination that graced his face every time he strung an arrow. Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t look away.

“I meant that I wanted to go further with _you_,” Kageyama said. “Because we’re,” he gestured between them with his free hand, “a team. And we’re part of a bigger team.”

Suga didn’t even try to muffle his laughter while Kageyama chased the point of his thought aloud. 

He wasn’t sure what to make of his inconceivable reappearance or how they would deal with the inevitable consequences of throwing off the entire balance of the angelic realm, but he had known from the very beginning that Kageyama was capable of anything he set his mind to doing. 

As for himself, Suga had never been afraid to get creative.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween!
> 
> I tried to do Something with this AU, and I'm not sure if I succeeded but I had a blast thinking about and writing it. The inspo came from a [Caravaggio painting](https://www.wga.hu/html_m/c/caravagg/10/63sleepi.html) (click at your own risk, the painting is a little strange/off-putting) and the title came from another sleeping cupid image - Non ti fidar che mai non dorme amore. I liked the idea that love had two sides, the light and the shadow. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed!!


End file.
